On July 30, the Louisiana Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of Jimmy Fahrenholtz, who wanted to run for U.S. House in the Democratic primary on September 6. The State Court of Appeals had earlier tied 4-4 on whether he should be on the ballot. The case is Williams v Fahrenholtz, 2008-ca-0961. The issue was whether a candidate for Congress can be kept off the ballot because part of his declaration of candidacy contains an untrue statement relating to whether he had any outstanding campaign finance fines or unpaid assessments.

The outcome contradicts 90 years of jurisprudence, that candidates for Congress cannot be kept off the ballot because of any crimes or punishments. The precedent is so strong, candidates for Congress have even been permitted to run from prison, or while fugitives from justice. However, in this Louisiana case, the candidate did not raise the constitutional issue at the trial court level, so the appeals courts wouldn’t fully consider it either. Thanks to Randall T. Hayes for this news. For more information, see this story.

The Behavior Research Center’s Rocky Mountain Poll released this Arizona presidential poll on August 1: McCain 43%, Obama 38%, Nader 3%, other and undecided 16%. See details here.

What is most notable about this poll is not the result, but the fact that the people who planned the poll are so ignorant about Nader’s ballot label. The third page tells us that the question for voters was, “If the 2008 election were being held today, and the candidates were John McCain, the Republican Party candidate, Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, and Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, which one would you vote for?”

Cynthia McKinney will be listed on the Arizona ballot as the Green Party candidate; Ralph Nader will be listed as an independent candidate.

Both Pennsylvania and West Virginia require minor party and independent presidential petitions to be submitted on August 1. In both states, one or another minor party is struggling with that deadline.

The Pennsylvania deadline seems very vulnerable to challenge. The legislature has never passed any law saying the deadline is August 1. Instead, in 1984, both the Libertarian Party and the Communist Party sued Pennsylvania over the May deadline. The state gave in and signed a consent decree, promising to accept petitions up until August 1.

But the July 17,2008 court order in Libertarian Party of Ohio v Brunner says that only state legislatures may create ballot access barriers, for president. In the Ohio case, the Secretary of State had created a ballot access barrier, but the Court interpreted Article II, section 1, to mean that only legislatures can do this. That part of the U.S. Constitution says “Each state shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.” Applying the same logic to Pennsylvania, the August 1 deadline is void.

No similar argument can be made against the West Virginia deadline of August 1, since it was passed by the legislature. But one can argue that it is too early, because the U.S. Supreme Court said in Anderson v Celebrezze that states may not discriminate against independent and minor party presidential candidates in the matter of timing. The major parties have not chosen their vice-presidential nominees, not even informally, and they won’t formally choose their presidential candidates until August 24-28 (Democrats) and September 1-4 (Republicans). There are two court precedents finding early August deadlines to be unconstitutionally early, one from Rhode Island in 1976 and one giving injunctive relief in Alaska in 1992.